by Jane Feather
“That you are most inconveniently indisposed? Yes, he did.” Simon sat down on the end of the bed, saying with a hint of amusement, “There’s no need to look alarmed, Ariel. I have no intention of claiming my marital rights until you’re ready to yield them.”
“I am grateful, my lord,” she said stiffly.
“I understand from your brother that you have no female companion,” Simon began. If this girl was ignorant and perhaps therefore frightened of the physical side of marriage, someone had to enlighten and reassure her. And it rather looked as if the task fell to his hand.
Ariel frowned, wondering where this was leading. It was not by any means the truth, but her life outside the castle was her own secret. Her brothers knew nothing of her friends or of the work she did among them. “I have never felt the lack within these walls,” she said carefully.
“But, my dear, it’s quite outrageous that you should have grown to womanhood without anyone to teach you—”
“Teach me what?” she interrupted vigorously.
Simon ran a hand through his close-cropped hair and grasped the nettle. “I will endeavor to answer any questions you may have,” he said. “I cannot explain these matters as a mother might, but . . .” He stopped dead. Ariel was laughing, her eyes brimming with merriment. “In what way have I amused you?” he demanded.
She struggled for sobriety. “My lord, I do assure you there is nothing that I do not know of these matters. There is nothing you could possibly tell me that I don’t understand.” She thought of her stud, of her work as midwife in the villages, and was suddenly convulsed with laughter again. She couldn’t tell him about these things, but it was so absurd that he should be trying to teach her the facts of life when she probably knew more than he did as they pertained to women.
Simon’s face closed. Without another word he rose from the bed, took his cane, and limped from the room. He closed the door behind him. It was one thing to endure the not-so-veiled mockery of the Ravenspeare brothers, quite another to hear it from his bride. A young girl, many years his junior, one who had never left the land of her birth, who could know nothing of the world as he knew it! And she dared to laugh at his admittedly clumsy attempts to gain her confidence.
His blood seethed, but beneath his anger lurked dark uncertainty. Did she see him as a figure of fun? A repulsive scarred cripple? A man from whom the fresh bloom of youth had been long rubbed off? A man who bore the marks of long suffering on his face and body? A hideous husband for such a bright, fresh maid. A hideous husband forced upon her. He’d guessed when he’d first met her that she was not a willing participant in this scheme. But surely she couldn’t have been forced to agree? This was not the Middle Ages; no woman could be legally compelled into a distasteful union.
But Ranulf Ravenspeare and his brothers were not civilized men. Had they coerced their sister in some way?
His spirit seemed to shrivel inside him as he saw himself as he must appear to the eyes of a young and beautiful girl. It was no wonder she couldn’t contemplate her bride bed, he thought with a surge of self-disgust. He had been prepared to encounter her resistance to a Hawkesmoor, and he had tried not to think that she might be repulsed by him personally. But his hidden fear had been justified, and he couldn’t imagine how he would nerve himself to overcome her revulsion.
He was still standing outside her chamber door, and the sounds from the Great Hall were growing increasingly incoherent. Presumably the disappearance of the bride and groom had been noted. If he returned to the festivities without his bride, he would be licensing the crudest of comments. Better to retire quietly and leave the drunken revelers to their own devices. Let them think what they wished.
He turned aside into his own chamber, opposite Ariel’s turret room. A fire burned in the hearth and a lamp had been lit on the mantelpiece to provide some cheer against the night chill. He was weary and saddened and angry, and as he flung himself into a chair beside the fire, he wondered why he had embarked on such an implausible scheme. What had made him believe he could heal such deep-seated wounds? What arrogance to believe he could bring peace to two families locked in blood hatred!
But it was done and he was stuck with the consequences of his conceit. However, maybe he could still turn this ill-fated visit to Ravenspeare land to good use. The thought heartened him a little and he rose to his feet, limping across to the table beneath the window where decanters stood ready filled. He poured a liberal measure of cognac and sipped slowly.
Esther. Somewhere on Ravenspeare land there was—or had been—a woman called Esther. A woman who had born a child to a Hawkesmoor.
Chapter Five
PROBABLY SHE SHOULDN’T have laughed, but it had seemed so absurd. Ariel frowned unconsciously at her image in the cheval glass, unaware of the distorted reflection thrown back at her by the flickering candle on the dresser.
That same look of uncertainty, of self-deprecation, had crossed his irregular features, and for a moment he had looked emotionally stripped bare, his eyes suddenly vulnerable as she stood there convulsed with amusement. She hadn’t been laughing at him exactly, it had been more with pleasure at her own secret life. But how could the Hawkesmoor know that?
She chewed her lip crossly. There was no reason for him to have been hurt at her laughter, surely? Annoyed, perhaps, but not wounded. And yet wounded was how he had looked. What on earth had he thought she was laughing at?
The dogs began to whine and scratch at the door, and she returned to the room with a shake of her head. The dogs had been confined since noon and needed to go out. She contemplated her image in the glass, tousled from the dance, the lace of her wedding gown torn, the silk skirt covered in muddy paw prints. There was nothing to save by changing before she ventured out into the night.
She took a heavy velvet cloak from the armoire and slung it around her shoulders, drawing the hood up over her hair and the bridal bands at her forehead. The dogs barked excitedly at this evidence of their impending release.
“All right, all right . . . patience.” She pulled on gloves, clasped the cloak at her throat, and opened the door. The hounds bounded ahead of her toward the stairs down to the Great Hall but stopped when she called them sharply.
“We’re not going that way,” she told them, turning aside to take the narrow stair that led through the kitchens. They jostled her on the stairs in their eagerness to get outside, and she nearly tripped down the last three steps.
The kitchen was quiet and surprisingly orderly. Two potboys slept almost in the embers of the hearth, a footman sat nodding over a tankard of ale, and a lone scullery maid scrubbed at blackened pots in the long trough in the scullery.
“Leave that, Maisie, and get you to bed.” Ariel stood under the arch that separated the massive kitchen from the scullery.
“Mistress Gertrude said as ’ow I mun’ finish up tonight, m’lady,” the girl said, wiping her brow with a chapped hand. “Seein’ as ’ow I ’ad special leave to visit me ma yesterday when all the preparations was goin’ on.”
“Was your mother sick?”
“Oh, no, m’lady. She ’ad a bonny babe.” The girl’s tired face lit up. “Suky, they’re goin’ to call ’er.”
“In the morning I’ll send a birthday gift for your sister,” Ariel told her, smiling. “But get you to bed now. I’ll make matters right with Mistress Gertrude.”
The girl dropped the pot she was scouring with a clatter and wiped her hands on her apron as she bobbed a curtsy. “Thank you, m’lady.” She scurried away in the direction of her own narrow pallet in the attic with the other maids.
Ariel wondered if Maisie would stop to think it strange that her newly wedded mistress was roaming the house on her wedding night instead of securely abed with her bridegroom. Then she shrugged the question aside. What did it matter what the household thought? They were all accustomed to the eccentricities of their Ravenspeare masters. If it weren’t for the fact that Ariel held the household reins firmly in her own hands, the lo
rds of Ravenspeare would have a hard time finding local people to serve them.
The dogs were barking at the closed kitchen door. When she opened it, they bounded out into the night, streaking across the yard toward the stables, where Ariel’s nightly habit would take them.
Edgar looked up from the charcoal brazier he was tending as his mistress entered the Arabians’ stable block. “Eh, I weren’t expectin’ ye tonight, m’lady.”
“It would take more than a wedding to keep me from my rounds,” Ariel said soberly. “How’s the colt?” She unfastened the half door of one of the stalls and slipped inside. “Oh, he’s so beautiful. I shall miss him.” She stroked the white blaze on the colt’s nose. “But can you believe that someone’s willing to pay a thousand guineas for him?” Her voice was awed as she gently pulled the colt’s ears.
“Anyone what knows their ’osses, m’lady, would pay that an’ more for such a beauty.” Edgar leaned over the half door, sucking a straw, his gaze sharp yet benign.
“I still think it’s amazing. If I could just sell two more, I’d be ready to set up on my own.” She moved back out of the stall, Edgar stepping aside for her and pulling the half door closed behind them.
“’Is lordship was down ’ere yesterday,” Edgar observed with seeming casualness.
Ariel stopped. “Doing what?”
“Jest lookin’ around, I reckon.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Not so’s you’d notice.” Edgar bent over the brazier again, warming his gnarled hands.
Ariel frowned. “He couldn’t know about the colt. The negotiations have been so secret.”
“Oh, I ’spect he was jest nosy,” Edgar responded.
“But Ranulf never bothers with my horses. None of them do. They’re only interested in hunters.”
“Per’aps ’e was lookin’ to see if’n ye ’ad a likely ’unter among this lot.”
“Perhaps.” But Ariel was uneasy. If Ranulf suspected that instead of a harmless hobby his sister had a money-making business going, he’d have his hands on the proceeds before she could blink an eye. In the morning she would casually mention his visit and see how he reacted. He might demand one of the stud, but with luck she could persuade him that none of them was up to his weight.
Her mouth tightened. The lords of Ravenspeare rode their horses viciously hard. She would shoot one of her animals rather than let any one of her brothers own it. She turned back to the yard. “Good night, Edgar. I’ll leave the dogs loose tonight. There are so many strangers around, I’ll sleep better if the hounds are roaming.”
“Aye,” the man agreed. “And I daresay I’ll sleep in the tack room, jest in case any of ’em gets restless with the noise.” He jerked his head speakingly toward the stableyard, where the row from the hall could be heard spilling around the castle.
“Thanks.” She smiled at him in the dim light and left the stable block. There was no sign of the dogs, and if she didn’t call them, they would enjoy a night’s freedom after a day’s confinement. Judging by the racket, the night’s sottish revelries, in the absence of the bride and groom, would continue until dawn, and it wouldn’t be the first time if some of her brothers’ guests decided to go for a moonlit ride. She wanted no drink-sodden rider throwing his leg over one of her horses.
She went back through the kitchen, throwing the bar over the door behind her. It would keep any drunkenly wandering guest from blundering into the stableyard through the kitchen. She had eaten very little at the feast and was suddenly aware that she was hungry. In the pantry she piled chicken legs, a large slice of veal and ham pie, and a bowl of syllabub on a tray, together with a tankard of mead from the keg, and hurried up the inside stairs.
She closed the door of her own chamber and leaned back against it with a sigh of relief. The sounds from downstairs were muted and her own room seemed a haven of peace and privacy. She set her supper on the side table and tossed aside her cloak, before throwing fresh logs on the fire and trimming the lamp. Then, satisfied that all was as cozy as she could make it, she sat before the fire, kicked off her shoes, and took the tray on her knees.
She was gnawing happily on a chicken leg when the door was suddenly thrown open. Oliver Becket stood there, two goblets in his hand, a twisted grin on his face.
“Eh, bud, we must drink to your wedding night.” He stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. The kick wasn’t strong enough and the heavy oak merely swung against the frame.
“Go away, Oliver.” Ariel kept her seat and continued to eat her chicken, hoping that a cool and sober response would penetrate her unwelcome visitor’s stupefied condition.
“Don’t be unfriendly, bud,” he chided, placing the goblets with exaggerated care on the bedside table. “You were not wont to be unfriendly before.” His skewed grin intensified as he came toward her, hands outstretched. “Come, you can’t spend your wedding night alone.”
“You’re drunk, Oliver.”
He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Of course I am, bud. What man would stay sober on such a night? Unless, of course, it be your husband. Old sobersides!” He leered and bent over her, whisking the tray from her knees and putting it aside without so much as a fumble.
Ariel felt the first stirring of alarm. His eyes, while unfocused, were bright with malice and purpose. It had never occurred to her that she couldn’t make her own wishes perfectly plain in these matters regardless of whatever scheme her brothers had concocted with Oliver.
“Come now, sweetheart.” He took her upper arms and pulled her to her feet. “Still in your bride dress, I see. Waiting for the bridegroom? How sad to be neglected on such a night. We must show Lord Hawkesmoor the way to his bride’s bed, I swear.”
“No!” She pushed at him, struggling to turn her head as he brought his mouth to hers. “For God’s sake, Oliver, leave me alone. I don’t want this.”
“Nonsense,” he mumbled against her mouth. “When have you not wanted it, my passionate flower?” He held her now against him with one ironbound arm while his free hand pulled at the laces of her bodice.
Why, tonight of all nights, had she not kept the dogs with her? The pointless question battered against her brain as Ariel struggled in a grip that drink seemed only to have made stronger. He didn’t seem to feel her pinches and scratches as she pushed at his face with her flat palm. She tried to kick at him, but he scissored her legs between his and then fell with her to the floor. She thumped her head hard on the wooden boards and saw stars. In the moment of confusion, Oliver had swung himself over her. He was laughing, but there was nothing pleasant about his expression. There was a grim predatory triumph and she knew with a sick tremor in her belly that her resistance was exciting him. He had pushed a leg between her thighs, one hand now held her wrists above her head, the other pushed and scrabbled at her skirts.
“No!” she screamed at the top of her voice, drumming her bare heels on the floorboards, fighting to twist her body free.
“Be still, bitch!” Oliver was no longer amused. His face was tight, his mouth a thin line. She could feel his flesh against her thigh as she tried to keep her legs closed, to draw her knees up.
She screamed again. And then suddenly Oliver was hauled off her. She lay looking up into the closed dark face of Simon Hawkesmoor. “Cover yourself,” he said coldly.
Ariel pushed her skirts down over her exposed thighs, feeling as soiled as if she had initiated and enjoyed that horror. She pulled herself upright.
Oliver stood leaning against the bedpost. He was breathing heavily. His mouth was bleeding and he held a hand against his cut lip. His eyes were black with fury and confusion, his britches unbuttoned, his shirt untucked.
“You’ll find that your bride enjoys a little rough-and-tumble, Hawkesmoor,” he said thickly. “I’ve noticed she grows more passionate with a degree of forceful persuasion. Isn’t that so, my bud?”
Ariel, with an inarticulate cry of outrage, launched herself at him and was uncere
moniously thrust into a chair with a flat palm against her chest. Her husband didn’t so much as look at her as he pushed her out of the way and she fell back in a disorderly tangle of ivory silk and vanilla lace.
“Get out of here before I unman you,” Simon said quietly to Oliver Becket. Oliver laughed, but it was an uncertain sound as his eyes fixed on the small knife that Simon held in his hand.
“You think I’m no match for a cripple?” he demanded, but he was already making his way to the door.
“Yes, I think that,” Simon said evenly. “And if you wish to try the case, then I am more than willing.”
Oliver laughed again with a drunken bravado and then he was gone. Simon closed the door and turned the key in the lock. He withdrew the key and stood thoughtfully, tossing it from palm to palm as he gazed at the girl still sprawled in the chair, her honeyed hair a tangled river flowing down her back, her great gray eyes haunted and anxious. There was no sign now of the girl who had so lately mocked him with her laughter.
But no wonder she had laughed. He had assumed her to be an innocent, ignorant maid. When all the time, this experienced young woman had been intending to cuckold him on his wedding night with her brother’s best friend.
Fool! He dropped the key into the pocket of his chamber robe. “How long have you and Becket been lovers?”
Ariel sat up, brushing her hair away from her face. “A twelvemonth.”
“And is it true that you enjoy rough play?” he inquired with a sardonic lift of his eyebrow.
Ariel flushed scarlet. “How could you think that?” she whispered.
He shrugged. “What am I supposed to think when I find you tangling on the floor, shrieking with passion?”
“No!” She sprang to her feet. “How could you think I was enjoying that? I was fighting him. I didn’t want him here. Surely you must believe that.” She looked at him in horror.
